Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Student 1
Mr. Bradley
2 November 2018
Within the United States’ constantly changing society, educational reform has again
become a pertinent issue. A country’s education system is one of the most important factors
influencing the future of its government and economy, meaning it is vital that it is effective and
working in the best way possible. Most schools in America are standardized and stiffly
structured, which is not giving students the skills they need to be successful in a modern society
The structure of America’s public schools is strict. Too strict, because it is stifling the
students’ abilities to flourish and grow in ways that will benefit them. Having a strictly
controlled and supervised student body is meant to minimize student free time in order to prevent
troublemaking in schools, but “you want them to be places where kids feel as though they can
learn and be supported,” and being overly strict “begins to turn schools into institutions that are
more like prisons” (Anderson). When there is a set time frame for each class, every minute of the
school day accounted for, students will feel trapped, while a relaxed school schedule would
allow students time to pursue their individual interests. Some say that kids would instead use this
time to mess around, but is it not boredom and restlessness that causes kids to get into trouble? If
they were given free time to be more independent and grow their own creativity and passions,
the school would feel less like a restricting, suffocating prison that they need to escape from.
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Another problem that arises from the structure of today’s schools is that not only does it
resemble a prison, but also a factory. Students are grouped by age and move through the
production line, having specific skills added into their brains as they grow, until the finished
product graduates and are dispersed into the world. Our education system, constructed by Horace
Mann, “made sense for the industrial age in which he lived. The factory line was simply the most
efficient way to scale production in general, and the analog factory-model classroom was the
most sensible way to rapidly scale a system of schools. Factories weren't designed to support
personalization. Neither were schools” (Rose). The factory-model classroom worked for a
society revolving around factory labor and farm labor, where education was only meant “to
simply create a tolerant, civilized society” (Rose), but in modern-day America, these jobs have
been replaced by automation, meaning that if citizens want to make a living, they need to look to
careers in engineering and technology. These jobs value individual creativity, meaning that the
factory model of public schools is not giving students what they need to be successful in today’s
society.
A school structure that does not resemble prisons or factories would benefit our education
system immensely. One such structure could be block scheduling, where students meet on
alternating days for fewer more extended class periods, instead of six, seven, or eight periods
every day. Advantages of this technique are that there are fewer classes, “teachers see fewer
students during the day, giving them more time for individualized instruction” (NEA), meaning
that students can retain their individuality instead of becoming a duplicate of the desired product
(NEA). Also, “students have more time for reflection and less information to process over the
course of a school day” , meaning that they have time to pursue their individual interests and
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make the most of their education. This more relaxed structure would be less stress on the student
as well, due to the fact that they get more time in the class and less homework. Some
recognizable flaws to this system would be that this would mean school would have to take up
more of the year in order to give students the same amount of time in the class that they would
have gotten in our current system, but a more meaningful structure might make up for a shorter
amount of time over the course of the year. Also, having classes every other day would break up
the continuity of the subject being taught. However, if students enjoyed what they were learning,
and had free time, they would pursue the topics outside of class. Schools that resemble prisons or
factories are ineffective at giving students what they need to earn a place in the world, due to the
Another huge obstacle that America’s students face is standardization. This factor of our
public school system’s curriculum has so many negative impacts, including the fact that “there is
little room for originality or creativity on the part of teachers or students” (Rubin, 94). In the real
world, these characteristics are the most important skills they could get out of an education, but
because teachers tend to “withdraw some of their energy from their courses” and gradually “end
up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only
material that will appear on the next test” (Loewen 1), students miss out on skills such as critical
thinking and problem solving, which go along with creativity. The exact skills that America’s
students are missing out on are necessary to becoming successful in the highly innovative careers
Not to mention, some students do not conform to the specific regulations put in place by
these standards, and do not do well on standardized tests, and therefore are labeled as “at risk.”
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“Labeling students has become an epidemic in our schools” because “labels are limiting- they
conceal more than they reveal” (Ayers 18). Labeling a student with ADD will not help the
student. Instead, it makes them feel as if they are inferior compared to their peers when in reality,
they simply do not respond to the teaching methods being used, or their individual skills are not
represented on a test. Students who do not conform to the standards then miss out on a
textbooks, most often history textbooks, are politicized and biased, and “leave out anything that
might reflect badly upon our national character” (Loewen 2). Textbook companies must cater
their books to the views of the schools that will be using them. Most often, it being the largest
state, this means catering to the views of Texas. One of the biggest inaccuracies present in
textbooks, concerning the Civil War, stems from this fact. The states that supported slavery, and
fought a war over it, including Texas, do not want to acknowledge this and therefore paint their
position in the Civil War as being for “state’s rights.” This incorrect fact is then spread
throughout schools across the country, meaning that students graduate with misconceptions, and
struggle in college. The bias that can be found in history textbooks is usually against minority
groups, who have been mistreated by society at some point in history. The message sent by these
boring, uninspiring books is that “you have a proud heritage. Be all that you can be. After all,
look at what the United States has accomplished.” This becomes “a burden for students of color,
children of working-class parents, girls who notice the dearth of female historical figures, or
members of any group that has not achieved socio-economic success. The optimistic approach
prevents any understanding of failure other than blaming the victim. No wonder children of color
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are alienated” (Loewen 3). Minority students will struggle in classes that utilize standardized
textbooks such as this, because if they are being told that they are not worth a place in a history
book, then how could they feel welcome in the classroom in which they sit? This then leads to
citizens who have been taught that they deserve no place in society, rather than learning things
With less standardization in curriculums, and less standardized testing, students will be
able to develop skills that will help them to be successful, like learning to formulate their own
answer based on their knowledge, opinions, and experiences, rather than be taught to simply pick
“a,” “b,” “c,” or “d.” Life in the real world is not made up of multiple choice questions, and
students who only know how to memorize and repeat back information will struggle. A method
of accomplishing this is having more free response questions on tests, which will challenge
students. Learning should be based on understanding the big picture and applying it to real world
situations, rather than the memorization of small facts. For example, in history classes,
“textbooks almost never use the present to illuminate the past,” and “conversely, textbooks
seldom use the past to illuminate the present” (Loewen 3). This causes the students to lose
interest in the subject. This, coupled with the bias and inaccuracies found in textbooks, means
that the use of textbooks should be greatly reduced. Classes should focus on including more
primary documents and activities to help students gain a better understanding of the subject.
Teaching students in a way that helps them to develop important skills and a deeper
understanding about the world that they live in cannot be accomplished with the obstruction of
standardization.
With education of the next generation being such an important factor in a country’s
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future, reform is a necessary chore in order to keep the system running smoothly. The current
system in America has many flaws, including the stiff, prison-like school schedules, factory-line
production, and standardization. This endangers the abilities of today’s students to have a
successful career and to keep the country running smoothly, meaning that something must
change.
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Works Cited
Anderson, Melinda D. “When School Feels Like Prison.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/when-school-feels-like-prison/499556/.
Ayers, William, and Ryan Alexander-Tanner. To Teach: the Journey, in Comics. Teachers
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Rose, Joel. “How to Break Free of Our 19th-Century Factory-Model Education System.” The
www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/how-to-break-free-of-our-19th-century-fa
ctory-model-education-system/256881/.
Rubin, Daniel, and Christopher Kazanjian. “‘Just Another Brick in the Wall’: Standardization
and the Devaluing of Education.” Steadman, Journal of Curriculum and Instruction for
www.joci.ecu.edu/index.php/JoCI/article/viewArticle/101.